Homecoming

From where does the bay come
to keep company with my thoughts?
To the east there is a half-moon shore
of yellow sand,
saw grass and sheltered marsh,
which now, in November, has a calico color,
a weave of dry grass and cold water,
clear as a lens.

It is a piece of the old bay,
still un-trampled, but not safe
from the builders and children of children
who want their place by the bay.
Here the dark rocks are polished by time.
Green hair covers their faces.
Green stones are scattered loosely
among the black stones,
and I leave them as they are.

When I was small I threw the stones
far and further than the horizon.
Now I want them undisturbed,
perhaps as my father saw them,
and my father’s father.
It is a dream,
a trick of the heart,
a slow moving tide
into the vast plateau of the past.
Let them be.
Let the stones lay glistening in the water.

To the west is a resort closed for the season,
given over to the gulls and Canadian Geese,
and foxes and rabbits,
making their place by the bay.
Snow has not yet fallen.
The clouds move white and gray
like great caravans over the water.
How I love my bay!
How I feel
in the cold, stinging chill of the water,
a sacrament.

Sandusky Bay is a holy place.
It can never be harmed.
Perhaps the dozers will come.
A city extended into the waves,
the shore of crescent dreams
be covered with tar,
the marsh drained,
the rabbits and foxes chased into the woods.

Perhaps,
in the clearness of fate,
nothing is eternal,
but it will have served its purpose.
It is where I live,
where a small boy became himself.
And I will take it with me unharmed
through the ages of my life.